


The Mistakes of a Young Sirius Black

by AlexiHollis



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluffy Ending, M/M, short and fluffy, with a tiny amount of angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-15
Updated: 2019-06-15
Packaged: 2020-05-12 05:22:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,733
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19222447
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlexiHollis/pseuds/AlexiHollis
Summary: Sirius hid his soul mark until the day his soulmate received his.ORA short one-shot I wrote off the cuff and decided to post because why not





	The Mistakes of a Young Sirius Black

Sirius sat in the common room on March 9, 1966. The clock ticked closer to midnight and he knew his three best friends were awake in their dorm, waiting for March 9th to become March 10th and fate to bestow a soulmate on Remus. They didn’t do the same for Sirius, even though Sirius spent that whole day in the infirmary thanks to a certain Slytherin with greasy hair, but not for lack of James’ whinging. He made sure to explain how _stupid_ he found the whole soulmate business, no better than his mother arranging a marriage probably with some second-cousin, and he wanted to find love on his own.

He knew he was gay. He didn’t need a name on his wrist to tell his best friends. When the name happened to be Remus’ name…he didn’t know what to do.

Remus wasn’t gay, obviously. The mark was clearly platonic, but as time passed Sirius realized he couldn’t respect that. He noticed too much.

Like how Remus was exactly six centimeters taller than him. Like how he smelled of the most delicious combination of old parchment and chocolate. Like how soft his sweaters are or how he gives the best hugs or how he looks on the edge of crying and murder when Sirius gets another howler from Walburga.

So Sirius didn’t tell him and went to ridiculous lengths to keep it from him. Like never wearing short sleeves. Changing in the bathroom.

Almost tricking his soulmate into killing Snivellus when Snivellus ambushed him and found out the name.

Sirius squinted his eyes at the fire, willed the thought out of his head. It happened before Christmas Break and…the Marauders weren’t okay. For a while. It got better, though. Two weeks after break, Peter sat down next to him at lunch and didn’t leave. A week after that, James showed up at Sirius’ detention, eyes red and tackled him to the ground. It took a while for Sirius to get the reason out of James, but he explained that Regulus told him and Remus how Severus blackmailed him, saying he would write to Walburga about Sirius’ gay soulmark (Sirius didn’t know how the hell Regulus found out or how much he knew, but that night he sent his younger brother a package of his favorite candy quills). James lectured him on not telling them what happened. How he loved Sirius no matter what, even if he preferred blokes. They were brothers in all but blood. The polish Sirius used to clean the trophies made his eyes start watering, no matter what James said.

After that, the Marauders hung together once again, but they still weren’t…the same. Remus kept his distance. Sirius continued to not show up to full moons, using the excuse that detentions kept him from doing his homework. But James gave him hugs and Peter smiled and Remus teased him about all of his backed up work. The twitchiness that existed in his nerves almost died.

Whenever it got close, though, his sleeve shifted. Or he took a shower. Or changed for Quidditch. The familiar script refused his ignorance in a color almost as vibrant as its gold hue.

Sirius burrowed deeper into the plush couch, creating a cocoon form out of his gloriously soft blanket. Well, Remus’ gloriously soft blanket. Since his birthday, his collection of Remus belongings grew to a gray and purple beanie, an old sweater Remus didn’t wear since his last growth spurt, and a pair of threadbare mittens. He _collected_ the blanket that afternoon during Remus’ Arithmancy class (according to the Soulmate books Evans and McKinnon kept leaving on his bed, ignored soulmate bonds resulted in a bizarre form of kleptomania. He only noticed this because McKinnon circled the passage close to twelve times, making it impossible to _not_ take notice before he threw it out with all the others. He didn’t know how _they_ found out, but he trusted them to an extent).

The tock ticked closer to midnight. Less than two minutes. Sirius felt his eyes stinging.

The week and a half before break sucked. Winter break sucked. The two weeks after break _sucked._ He didn’t know how he survived it. He sure as fuck didn’t know how he could survive the inevitable once Remus realized with who the world stitched his soul.

Who the hell decided Sirius deserved someone like Remus anyway? Was this another punishment for Remus being a werewolf? Someone beneath him in every way? Who betrayed him because he couldn’t handle a little backlash?

Sirius decided someone must have been polishing in the common room as well when his eyes began tearing up and the smoke from the fire the reason he couldn’t breathe correctly.

He tensed as the clock ticked to midnight. Nothing happened. The world didn’t stop spinning. The fire didn’t swallow him whole. Everything felt the same. The common room as cozy as ever before.

A few seconds passed. He was tired. He was so, _so_ tired. He fell asleep on the couch.

* * *

 

Waking up was a disorienting experience. He fully remembered falling asleep on the couch, but he woke up looking at the canopy of his bed. The curtains around him blocked out the light, just the way he liked. Carefully separating them, he realized he was alone. His watch told him it was nearly noon.

Well, then.

He swung his feet off the bed. Maybe the other three went for a celebration breakfast, left Sirius to sleep: they kept commenting on how tired he looked for the past two weeks (left Sirius and his betraying, secret keeping ways, why would they hang out with him anyway?).

As he headed towards the bathroom, though, he heard a cough that caused him to jump like a scared cat.

“Good morning, Sirius.”

Remus sat on his bed, fully dressed and ready for the day, his feet on the floor and his hands folded in his lap. He didn’t look at Sirius as he spoke.

“Oh.” Sirius’ tongue felt heavy and dry. “I didn’t see you.”

Remus scoffed and rolled his eyes. “Obviously.”

He looked up at Sirius who realized how quickly his death would come. He’d seen that look _so many times_ on a variety of people: mother, father, Regulus, the stricter teachers from the early Hogwarts years as he struggled to find his footing. The look of disappointment and shame always twisted Sirius’ stomach, but he never felt like he would actually be violently ill.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Remus asked. Oh and wasn’t that a question.

Sirius just stared.

“For fuck’s sake, Sirius!” Remus shot off his bed, anger as hot as Sirius ever saw. “ _This_ is what you almost got Snape killed over?! What you almost turned me into a _murderer_ for?”

Shit. Remus never swore. Ever.

“Is it really that _awful_ to be bound to me?!”

Wait, what?

“Wha-No! Remus, what?” Sirius cocked his head to the side. “What are you talking about?”

“You knew I’d find out eventually, you aren’t stupid.” Remus griped. “I just-You always said that my soulmate _would_ be stupid to reject me for being a werewolf. So why are you?”

Sirius stared at Remus again, the words not computing.

Remus looked about to cry and Sirius’ stomach twisted tighter. “Why would you betray me like that just to keep us being soulmates a secret? You _know_ they aren’t always romantic!”

“But I want it to be.”

Remus’ face scrunched. “That’s not funny, Sirius.”

He would never be able to eat again. “I’m being serious! I’m not even making a pun, that’s how serious I am! That’s why I didn’t tell you, because I knew you’d freak out because you aren’t gay-”

“Because I’m bisexual, you absolute _nitwit_!” Remus’ face was red now.

“You’re also completely out of my league!”

“What league?!”

“The dating league!”

“That makes no sense.”

“Yeah, to you, because you are such an amazing person that you don’t recognize the system! But I do! And you are _way_ too good for me!”

Remus glared at Sirius with his patented I’m-quite-intelligent-and-can’t-understand-your-level-of-stupiditiy-right-now glare.

“I’m supposed to be angry at you,” Remus said. “You are making it very difficult.”

“…I’m sorry?”

Remus sighed and sat back down on his bed, patting the spot next to him. Sirius sat down. Their arms brushed, but they didn’t touch other than that and they stared into the empty room in front of them.

After a few moments of silence, Sirius peeked over to see Remus running his thumb over his new mark. Sirius cringed, maybe his mother had a point about the writing lessons; his horrific, sloppy scrawl now sat on Remus’ wrist forever.

“I was mad at you last night,” Remus said. “I told myself I wouldn’t be mad when I talked to you this morning, but…” He let the sentence die. “James said you had a reason.” He glared a little out of the corner of his eye, but playfully. “Not a good one probably, but a reason that made enough sense to you for you to go against your own beliefs the way you did.”

No. He didn’t.

“Sirius, your parents are nightmares who are planning to marry you off anyway, I wouldn’t have told them either. Snape was out of line threatening you like that.”

“I didn’t even know how to tell you I was gay,” Sirius muttered. “How could I tell you I… _liked_ you on top of that?”

“I wish you trusted our friendship enough to know that wouldn’t have mattered.”

“I d-”

“No, you don’t.” Remus looked at him straight on. “But I don’t blame you for it. It’s not like I told you I had a crush on you either.”

Sirius felt all the blood in his body run to his face. It didn’t help when Remus started to chuckle.

“We’re soulmates, Sirius, you had to have guessed that by now.”

Sirius couldn’t think of enough words to string together to form a coherent sentence to respond to _that_. The information began to settle. His heart began to calm.

He smiled widely at the boy next to him, teasing and cocky, “You have a crush on me, then?”

Remus, ever the intellect, remained calm. At least on the outside. “Perhaps, I do.”

“What would you say to a date to Hogsmeade? Say, next weekend?”

“I would love to.”

 


End file.
